Due to the rapid spread of COVID-19, many areas of everyday life have changed.. Some people found it difficult to adapt to the consequences of selfisolation and the need to work and study remotely. Students were not excluded. This paper was carried out in the form of a questionnaire, in which students answered, questions about changes, faced during the pandemic, namely, the problem to independently organize the educational process. The aim of the study is to find, out whether the change in the format of education from full-time to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic affects the ways and forms of self-organization of students of higher education institutions. The research was carried, out in the form of a questionnaire, using a questionnaire from the work of Syauqi (2020). During the research, we interviewed 200 students studying in undergraduate and graduate programs on the basis of RUDN, on a budgetary and commercial basis. Due to the current epidemiological situation, the study was carried, out in a remote format using the Google forms service. The results showed that most of the students faced difficulties in self-organization. The relevance of this study is due to the transition of many Russian and foreign universities to the online learning format, which is primarily due to the restrictions on the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the urgent change in the format of training, many students have difficulties in self-organization during the educational process. The peculiarities of self-organization of students studying in a distance format can help in the further development of pedagogical and methodological programs for eelucational courses in a distance, format. Also, our research will contribute to a better understanding of the features of the implementation of distance education on the basis of higher educational institutions.